Purbach!

Since I have limited Internet here in Austria I can’t upload pictures but I suppose I could give an update of what’s been happening here in Purbach. Like I said before, my host is Tascha and for the most part it is Tascha, David, and myself hanging out and fixing up the house. I’ll post the pictures once I get to my next place, but right now just too slow to upload.

Tascha got the house from her grandmother and has restored the entire house so far except for two rooms at the front end of it. During my time here David and I have taken up the flooring in the unfinished part and have prepared the electricity to be finished by the electrician, and also prepared the floors for cementing. We are going to pour the cement for the floor any day now, just waiting on a few things to get finished. We are (mostly David) also turning the floorboards into benches and cabinets to use around the house, knocking down/removing a brick room attached to the house, preparing the walls for plastering, doing general work on the house, and also cooking lots of great food and seeing the sights!

I have learned so much about construction that it almost makes me want to buy a run-down, foreclosed home in Chicago and fix it all up myself. I can see how satisfying it is to Tascha to restore this house into a home and I think it would be a great thing to do if the right situation came up.

I’m also continuing to learn about great food and cooking. Austria is mostly known for its fatty, heavy, greasy, and delicious foods, more specifically sausages, schnitzel, cakes and pastries, and wines. I never knew Austria produced so much wine, but everywhere we go all I see are fields and fields of grapes. Tascha’s grandfather actually owns a farm and produces a very good wine for the region and I saw where he makes it and everything…..very cool stuff.

Traveling-wise, we went to a three-day music festival called Donauinselfest last weekend. It’s a festival on the Danube River in Vienna that was pretty big with lots of artists from all over the world. There were only four that David and I recognized though…Daughtry, Razorlight, Snow Patrol, and Manfred Mann’s Earth Band. Tascha and her friend Kati worked at a food/drink stand for the festival so David and I hung out and got free food and beer while we were there walking around.

So I’ve been to Vienna (Wien) and seen a little of the city, but mostly I’ve seen the area around where Tascha lives. Purbach is a small city of about 2,000, but it is connected with other small cities that surround the lake called Neusiedler See (Neusiedler Lake). It’s an area where locals from Vienna come to take vacations and relax….very beautiful, old and also very Austrian. I’ve been running on paths around here and it couldn’t get any better. Neusieler See is actually one of the largest lakes in all of Europe, but what’s interesting is that it is only about 6 feet deep across the entire thing! The best part about this area though is that the combination of the giant path around the lake (about 80 miles) that is completely paved along with the shallow lake makes for a perfect place to train for running races/triathlons. It really makes me wish I brought my bike here, but only running is still fantastic.

Not sure what else to say, I’m only here until July 8th before I head to Damiatte, France for a couple weeks. It’s a small town in the southwest of France, and I’m staying in a big house owned by an English woman. I love help exchanges, however I don’t necessarily like staying at a place for only 2.5 weeks at a time. But it’s really the only way if I want to see places while I’m here. I’d much rather spend a month like I did in Italy and get to know people and places that much better, this is still wonderful though.

That’s all for now, I’ll keep posting updates but no pictures for now. I’ll do all of those in one post once I get to France. Happy 4th of July everyone!

Tschuss!